November 30th Tuesday means modelling walking for Huan and solo walking for me. Escort duty was required as Yú wasn’t feeling so good today so Huan was alone. After dropping her ladyship off I headed down to the riverside for some vitamin D.
I found someone else soaking up the rays too.
Fire and Rescue were training by the weir again today, this time with no second boat but a tethered swimmer to save the victim instead. This crew did well.
After soaking up a few more sunbeams I spotted them again on my way back, this time the other side of the weir, trying to rescue someone stuck in the overflow. I saw a few failed attempts but eventually they succeeded. If I ever did find myself in trouble somewhere on the river, or anywhere else come to that, I’d be very happy to see these chaps approaching.
Passing our little island on the way home I heard the sounds of our neighbours, just the saxophonists today, so I popped in to say hello. Check the English on the jacket.
After lunch we headed off down to Sanya o collect my medical results. Taking a slightly different route led to a difference of opinion with Hyacinth, (Yes, that’s Huan’s name in the car). She thought I was adding kilometres and time to our journey and only believed I was right when we finally arrived at the right place, quicker than last time!
What were the results then? I don’t know do I, I’m not a doctor! Most things appear to be fairly normal, I do have hypertension and I still have a fatty liver, no matter what I eat that never seems to change. There were a couple of comments on my ECG but they also wrote “no abnormal findings of heart, lungs and diaphragm”. Let’s hope it’s good enough for my visa.
Being later back in Wuzhishan we had to eat out again, this is getting to be too regular. We both think we could get quite used to it! Today was cheapo buffet style again, no video.
December 1st Lots of people can celebrate today, blacksmiths, clockmakers,
cutlers, farriers, goldsmiths, jewellers, jockeys, labourers, metalworkers,
saddlers, sick horses, toolmakers, veterinary surgeons and wheelwrights. Why?
Because the 1st December is the feast day of St. Eloi (Eligius)
their patron saint. (I wonder who the patron saint of retired grumpy old men
is.) Born on this day were Marie Tussaud (1761), Woody Allen (1935) and Bette
Midler (1945). A surprise, for me anyway, is that the first Christmas stamps
were issued on this day in 1966 by post offices in
Some more searching for vitamin D for me this morning after walking Huan to her hulusi class. As I passed by the town square, some of the members of her deportment class were there on the stage, preparing for their Ethnic Minority show, obviously not in costume yet.
Nearer the river I passed my favourite repair man, and after an exchange of pleasantries I took a sneaky photo. I thought he would look good in black & white.
Buying the lottery tickets was a bit of an assault course today.
One of the good things about
These next two photos are a quiz for you dear reader. Can you spot the similarities between the two photos? PS There are no prizes for the correct answers.
Did you get it right? Everybody who is sat down is sat with their backs to the sun, nearly every one who s walking is walking away from the sun. In fact, apart from me, only one other person is walking in the same direction. I’ll leave you to reason why.
I didn’t walk too far today, I wanted to get home and get the Christmas decorations up before the Minister of Housing got home. My camera selfie of me and the results failed!
I had wanted to get the Merry Christmas in the above photo, never mind, it’s here.
December 2nd We had one of those early starts again today, this time to drive to
Luckily the driver had left a
phone number on the dashboard so we were on our way before too long. Just to
ensure our worry levels didn’t get too low we had to leave the highway for a
diversion, perhaps a traffic accident, we don’t know. We needn’t have worried,
we got to the visa office with plenty of time to spare before lunch. During our
conversation the lady asked Huan why we didn’t apply for a green card. Huan
told her that she didn’t think that was possible here because Huan’s Hukou card
is a
Once the seed of a ‘green card’ had been planted in Huan’s brain her thoughts were going ten to the dozen, so much so that we completely missed our turning back onto the highway to go home. The sat-nav soon had us going the right away again, in time for a lunch break at Tungshan services. There is a short video of that stop, you can find it here - https://youtu.be/JZjBilfYflI
After a quick shop, for the next three days, we stayed in and did nothing. Well I did nothing, Huan stayed warm and practiced her hulusi.
Oh, and one of her flutes!
December 3rd Back to normal for a while, escort duty again this morning taking the ladies to their hulusi class at Yefeng. Here are the “Three Little Maids From School”. (Hands up those of you who started singing the song!)
And here they are again with the rest of the motley crew, perhaps playing St. Trinians? I did try and teach them some English before the class started but they got bored after “Good morning”!
Unusually I took no more photos on my walk, I was in a bit of a hurry to make sure I bought milk, something we couldn’t buy where we went yesterday, and also to make sure I got back home early enough to take the baps out of the freezer and the butter out of the fridge. I needn’t have bothered, Huan had already done both. I did remember the most important thing though, “make sure you get my points when you buy the milk!”
In the afternoon we had a visit from the local police, they needed me to sign and fingerprint my visa approval form so that their boss can give me a yay or a nay. The older policeman was the same one that we have known for six years so smiles all round. It won’t stop me worrying of course until my visa is in my grubby little mitt.
Being Friday, and despite us eating out yesterday, I managed to keep Huan to our routine of eating out once a week and making a video. I told her that yesterday’s video didn’t count as it was just a highway stop. You can see today’s here - https://youtu.be/cTyJwKIVgVs
December 4th Yet another show beckoned us today but this one was in our town square so need for an early rise and a drive. Instead just a gentle stroll along the riverside.
Is good luck going to shine on me today? On our way to
The square was celebrating the beginning of “National Lifelong Learning Activity Week” and apart from the show had stalls all round. Some were ethnic cultures, many were run by children selling the books and toys that they had grown out of.
Our main reason for going was because Huan’s deportment class were involved in the show but once we were there she recognised a lot more people. We didn’t stay for everything but we did catch a fair few of the performances, very good they were too.
Huan met up with some old singing friends, she no longer goes to those classes, mostly due to the fact that she is far too busy!
Off we headed to the riverside market then, as is now routine on a Saturday, passing this sign in a window that we had never seen before despite arriving in 2015.
My next photo is censored, in as much as I am not going to show it to you. As we entered the market area we passed a gentleman singing, he had a crutch and a large signboard with what we never got a chance to see. As soon as he saw the camera pointing his way he leapt straight in front of the signboard without missing a beat. He obviously didn’t want the publicity.
A regular stall in the market now is the Li minority shop, today with a young man doing the weaving outside and not an older woman as it is usually is. What about the jewellery on the mannequin? It’s made of silver and quite heavy, would you like to wear it?
And our last photo of the day refers to a new development. I had seen this sign before but I wanted Huan to have a look before I shared it with you. The Chinese roughly translates as 60+ young people dream of enjoying living in a new world. The English version, while almost the same, adds the word Lohas. Google was my friend for that, LOHAS means “Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability”, learn more here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOHAS
No sleeps today, when we got home I had to work for the Orchestral Director first, scanning new hulusi music, cleaning it, and then printing it. My next job was working for the artistic director and trying to prune the more than two hundred photos we took today. She thinks it’s very easy, just bin the ones you don’t want, not understanding that I need to check every single photo and then decide which ones are good enough to keep, and tweak them a little if necessary. My last job was working for the executive chef, duck stew again this weekend. It’s a good job I don’t mind having so many bosses!
December 5th Sunday is our usual ‘go for a nice long walk in the morning’ day. However, one of us, who shall remain nameless, slept in again today, I’m sure you can guess who. As a result we didn’t go anywhere this morning, Huan did a little music practice and watched movies, I did my daily Chinese lesson and watched movies too.
We made up for our laziness after lunch though and set off into the countryside. The weather was just about perfect for walking today, just a little bit of a sweat worked up. Heading off past the old TV station we spotted some plastic bags floating on the ‘thermals’, I think that’s what you call them. One of the plastic bags appeared to be reacting a little differently to the others and was not being carried back up. As it passed us before disappearing behind some trees we realised that this wasn’t a solitary bag like the ones we often see, no this was a bag full of bags! At least it was a bag full of something; perhaps it fell out of a low flying plane!
Before too long we were in our favourite environment, off the beaten track and in the undergrowth, pointing our cameras at each other.
Huan, as always, wasn’t sure where we were or where we were going, but realised once we were out of the trees and in the open again.
Soon we were on one of our favourite farm tracks along with a few other friends. I don’t know a great deal about chicken farming, in fact I know nothing at all, but I often wonder how, or maybe even more amazing, why, they all go back to their coops at night time.
Further along we took a detour and found a place that used to house little piggies, maybe it’s where the chickens go home to roost now.
Like many of these places they had a guard dog looking after it while the people are away. In this case though the poor little mutt was terrified, never barked at all and just cowered. I did give it a little bit of love while we were there, I thought that was the least I could do.
How about a little bit of nature next, the butterfly was exceedingly difficult to capture and as you can see I never caught it with its wings spread. The second photo is a crop of a photo of half a butterfly, I think I prefer it.
“Go down there” said the expedition leader so being the ever obedient little soldier I did just that. I even succeeded in getting a much better picture of Huan than she did of me. I know, I can hear you sniggering that it’s not difficult is it, she is much better looking than me!
The path is one we have been down before, not too long, and comes out to this view.
All too soon we were back on the bridge to nowhere which has been taken over again. This time it has become the parking lot for a large number of electric post office vans and yet another brand of rentable electric mopeds. Look carefully and you will see that the post office cans are brand spanking new whereas the mopeds are definitely second hand.
Is this good news or bad news? I know some of my Youtube subscribers would think it was good news. Despite not being a great fan, we will visit one day so that people can spot the differences between a KFC here and one in the West. Never having been to one in the West I have no idea!
The customers you can see in the photo above were just a little disappointed. It’s not open yet, they are still busy inside. Having said that, we didn’t actually see anyone working!
Our last photo for today is good news, work has begun on repairing the back road around the villas. Maybe next week we can give you a further update, for today here’s a photo of a truck delivering sand and rocks.
December 6th Monday, as you know, is shopping day for us, get in the weekly necessities. Today I went down to the car first, and as is usual for a shopping day I didn’t have the big camera with me. I think the birds knew, just look at them at the top of the tree. You can almost hear them saying “na na na na na”!
Back home I tried a macro photo with the phone; I guess the big camera would have been better! Could it be a money spider? Well the bird poo didn’t work maybe this will!
The afternoon brought escort duty and another walk and yet another electric car, this one even has four doors. I wonder what a ‘Lingbox’ is supposed to be in English.
Having dropped Huan off I headed in the general direction of the bap market, around the back way, and then decided to take the centre road, one we haven’t been up for years.
I soon realised why we hadn’t been up there for a while, there is no way out at the other end. There were things to see though, a blocked off road with a garden behind the building.
A bullock.
And then someone deep in thought.
Perhaps he was lost and wondering how to get out of the garden.
On my back into town I passed a
new flower centre but I’ll save that until I have the
So, a fairly quiet week although a little busier than usual. Unless we get an early call from the visa section at Immigration next week should be much more relaxing. I will do my utmost to get Huan into the countryside again though; she does enjoy it, as do I. We’ll be thinking of you all over the next week or two and hoping you don’t get locked down again for Christmas. So far there is no sign of that here but there have been some lockdowns on the mainland. We’ll keep our fingers crossed. Take care all, see you next time!
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